Thursday, October 08, 2015

Last night saw some awesome auroral displays throughout Tasmania, parts of
Victoria and aurora were even reported in SA, with the best activity on the
early morning of the 8th.

The geomagnetic storm is ongoing, and may last until
the evening here in Australia.

The Australian IPS has issued a
geomagnetic alert for a G1 class storm NOW and the NOAA site has a predicted G2 storm from a fast moving solar wind stream from a coronal hole. Currently the
magnetic field is -2 nT, Velocity: 749 km/sec Density = 5.0 p/cc . K index is
currently 5 overall. These conditions are promising, and if they hold until
night fall then Tasmania and Southern Victoria may see aurora as they did last
night. maybe not as good as last night, but well worth watching out for.

Dark sky sites have the best chance of seeing anything, and always allow
around 5 minutes for your eyes to become dark adapted.
As always look to the
south for shifting red/green glows, beams have been reported consistently over
the last few aurora and a large green "blob" has been seen.